


Standing Long

by Callisto



Series: Season 5 codas [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Episode Related, Gen, Season/Series 05, episode: s0504 The End
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-09
Updated: 2011-04-09
Packaged: 2017-10-17 19:36:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/180452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callisto/pseuds/Callisto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It’s not as if they don’t have shit to talk about. They have an entire planet of shit to talk about. Literally. Only Dean doesn’t want their very first conversation to be about Sam breaking his neck with little more than the casual press of a Gucci loafer. Or why they are never going to Detroit. Ever.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Standing Long

**Author's Note:**

> _And a new day will dawn  
>  For those who stand long  
> -Stairway to Heaven-_
> 
> This one works as a sequel to the coda for 5.02 'Doing Without'.

It’s awkward, but Dean was expecting that. Sam is in shotgun not saying much, and he keeps stealing these sideways glances at Dean, like Dean and the Impala will vanish from sight if he doesn’t keep checking. But given the recent five-years-and-three-days-in-a-single-frickin’-night headzap Dean has just lived through, he can cut his brother some slack for those fears. Dean looks and Sam’s head shies away again, to where the fingers of his left hand are smoothing down the denim on his leg as it dances a little.

Great, Sam the skittish prom date.

“What?”

It’s the first thing Sam has said in nearly an hour, but sharing the reason why Dean just shook his head and smiled may not be the best way to break the ice.

“Nothing. I...nothing.”

And like that they’re back to awkward again.

It’s not as if they don’t have shit to talk about. They have an entire planet of shit to talk about. Literally. Only Dean doesn’t want their very first conversation to be about Sam breaking his neck with little more than the casual press of a Gucci loafer. Or why they are never going to Detroit. Ever.

A ruined garden and a ruined brotherhood can wait.

And besides, if Dean can say the loudest and scariest ‘fuck you’ of his life to both Zacharia and his own damned self, then he’s pretty sure he-- _they_ have a shot at making sure neither ever happens.

First, he’s just got to get him and Sam back to...

“Is this broken or something?” Sam is tapping the tape deck and looking puzzled.

...him and Sam.

He reaches around behind him for the shoe box he hasn’t touched in a while and tosses it into Sam’s lap. “Knock yourself out.”

Sam stares at him.

“What?” asks Dean

“Wow. Now I know it’s the end of days. What happened to shotgun shuts his cakehole?”

“Shut the fuck up, okay?”

“That’s more like it. You had me worried.” But Sam is smiling, his leg has stopped bouncing, and as the sound of the one and only slow tape Dean has fills the car, everything unlocks so hard and fast in Dean’s chest he thinks he might have to pull over.

“You okay?”

He is. He really, really is. He thinks about the amulet, about Cas, about all the ways he’s crazy to be breaking away with Sam like this... And then he clears his throat and glares at his brother. “Dude, Stairway to Heaven?”

“Hey, it’s your music. Not my fault it’s the best of the worst.”

Dean takes a hand off the wheel to smack Sam across the head, Sam holds the box as if he’s going to throw it out the window and in that instant Dean realizes the amulet can stay gone a while longer.

He has the two out of three that will keep him sane.

*****


End file.
